


Ghost in the Wire

by Rinkafic



Series: Misc Fanfic [34]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-10
Updated: 2012-08-10
Packaged: 2017-11-11 20:53:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/482791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rinkafic/pseuds/Rinkafic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Done for Kink Bingo fill "Phonesex/Epistolary"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghost in the Wire

The first time it happened, Jack had been in a bar in Boston. He’d been doing freelance work for Torchwood again and was meeting an agent here to do a handoff. They wanted him to take over the Seattle Torchwood office for a while, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do that yet. He was still too raw after losing Cardiff, after losing Ianto. So he limited himself to random jobs, going from office to office. Drifting. Lost.

His phone rang and he tapped the earpiece. “Harkness.”

“I’ve always liked you in blue.”

His breath caught in his throat at the Welsh accent in his ear. When he could speak again, he demanded, “Who is this?”

“Blue brings out your eyes. You should always wear blue, Jack.” 

“Is this some kind of joke?” Jack spun on the barstool and looked around for anything or anyone out of the ordinary. But there was no one. It was an ordinary Beantown bar, and almost everyone was watching the Red Sox whump the Yankees. No one was paying the tall, dark, brooding man at the bar any mind. He leaned on the bar and hissed into the phone, “Who is this?”

“Have you forgotten me so soon, Jack? I’m disappointed. We had such good times together. I practically lived just for your touch.”

His voice was barely a whisper as he asked, “Ianto?”

“Goodnight, Jack.”

The second time it happened, Jack was listing to the radio while he did surveillance of a suspected nest of Gulange in the slums of Dubai. One moment he was listening to the soundtrack from the latest Bollywood blockbuster, and the next he heard an indistinct voice.

“Jack? Can you hear me?”

“Who is that?”

“You need to duck down, Jack. Now.”

He slid down in the seat; just as a half dozen of the vicious Gulange came out of an alleyway. He heard them as he huddled low. If they had seen him, they would have ripped him to shreds. 

He pulled out the sound grenade he had requisitioned from UNIT, pulled the pin and tossed it out the window.

The radio was playing the dance music once again. 

The third time it happened, he was working at a desk at the new Torchwood branch in Prague, helping the sort through case files and prioritize which ones they needed to send their small staff of investigators out on. Luckily, he didn’t speak the language fluently, so they weren’t able to draft him as the new head for the Czech branch. 

The phone on the desk rang, and he looked around. It was late; he was the only still in the office. He sighed when it continued to ring and finally got aggravated enough to pick it up. “Dobrý večer.”

“Picking up a new language, Jack?” In the quiet deserted office, there was no mistaking Ianto’s voice. 

“Ianto?”

“I miss you Jack.”

“I miss you too, more than I can put into words. How are you talking to me, Ianto?”

Ianto laughed, and Jack’s heart clenched at the sound. “Over the phone, obviously.”

“Ianto, don’t take this the wrong way, but you died. In my arms.”

“Oh, that? Yeah. That hurt. Thank you for being there for me through that, Jack.”

Jack took a deep breath to calm himself. “So, you’re what, a ghost?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are sitting at a phone somewhere, calling me?”

“No. I’m just talking to you.”

“From where?” Jack looked around again. Stranger things had happened to him in his life than having a dead lover ring him up. He lifted his hands and waved them around in front of him. 

“Everywhere, nowhere. Right in front of you. You look ridiculous, stop that.”

He dropped his hands. “I miss you, Ianto.”

“Do you remember that last time? In the office, before the trouble started.”

“You brought me coffee.”

“I always brought you coffee, that was my job, Jack. After I put the coffee down?”

“You came around the desk.” Jack closed his eyes and lost himself in the memory. “You knelt down. You ran your hands up over my thighs. Then you undid my zipper. You buried your face there, sniffing, inhaling, just breathing me in. I loved it when you did that.”

“I took that memory with me, a scent memory.”

“You pulled me out and sucked me down. Your hands, your mouth, you brought me to the edge so fast. Everything with you was always so fast, Ianto. Always over too soon.”

“I have the memory.”

"So do I.”

“Leave me there, Jack. Tuck me away somewhere in the back of your mind. Pull me out now and then, but leave me in the past Jack. You have to move on. Let go.”

“I’m not ready.”

“Yes you are. If you weren’t, I wouldn’t be talking to you now. Let me go Jack. It’s time for you to be wholly with the living again. A man who can’t die cannot continue living for a dead man’s memory. I love you, I will always love you. Say goodbye Jack.”

“I’m not ready.” He could feel tears beginning to spill over. “Don’t make me say it.”

“Goodbye, Jack.”

“Goodbye, Ianto.” He let the phone drop into the cradle and rocked back in the chair, closed his eyes and thought of better times. 

Hours later he found himself still sorting through those memories and packing them away. It was time.

 

The End


End file.
